By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, July 6, 2023: The police in a central Indian state have arrested a man who was caught on camera urinating on a tribal in public.
Pravesh Shukla, who was arrested on July 5 night, has been charged under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
He was arrested after a video, which shows him urinating on the tribal, was widely shared on social media, sparking outrage online.
According to the police, Shukla, who kept changing his place in a bid to avoid the arrest, was caught at 2 am and interrogated. A case has been registered against him under the National Security Act, SC/ST Act, and other sections of the Indian Penal Code. As part of the investigation, Shukla’s wife and parents were also questioned.
The authorities in the state have demolished Shukla’s house. A senior government official said Shukla’s house was built on illegal land.
Videos showed a bulldozer pulling down the wall and a tin roof of the house.
Opposition parties such as the Congress have alleged that Shukla is associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads the coalition governments in Madhya Pradesh and New Delhi.
The BJP has denied the allegation.
Meanwhile Madhya Pradesh Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan invited the victim to his home on July 6 morning and apologized to him. The chief minister also washed the tribal’s feet in a sign of penance.
Earlier, the chief minister had expressed outrage at the incident and ordered the administration to impose the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against Shukla.
Madhya Pradesh is among a few states where elections to the state legislative assemblies are due this year. Critics say the chief minister’s gestures are to save his party that cannot antagonize the entire tribal community that forms 21.1 percent of the state’s total 85 million people. Madhya Pradesh also accounts for more than 13 percent of the total tribal population in India.
The Congress has set up a panel to investigate the incident and plans to meet the state’s governor a week later to raise the issue of alleged suppression of Dalits and tribal people in the state.
In the video, which was first circulated on July 4, Shukla is seen smoking a cigarette as he urinates on the face of the man who is sitting by the side of the road. Shukla was reportedly drunk at the time.
Soon after the video went viral, Kamal Nath, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, tweeted that the incident has put the entire Madhya Pradesh to shame and demanded strictest punishment to the guilty.
Meanwhile the victim Dasmat Ravat from Karaundi dismissed the viral video as fake.
The 6-year-old had prepared an affidavit stating that the video is fake and was created to frame Shukla in a false case. However, sources say that the affidavit was allegedly prepared under duress and has not yet been submitted to any authorities.
The report says: “The 6-year-old had prepared an affidavit stating that the video is fake and was created to frame Shukla in a false case.” It’s quite confusing. Who is this “6-year-old”? Can a 6-year-old make an affidavit?